When you consider the numerous, important "headwinds" facing housing you'll realize except for certain specific, small areas (including the inevitable government subsidized areas), housing will not recover for a generation.

INFORMAL & ANECDOTAL PART (skip this is you're not into anecdotes): So, along this theme (the NAR scam), I'm out shopping for a few last minute things and noticed that the stores are, without a scintilla of a doubt the LEAST crowded I've ever seen.

I hate shopping. It's a guy thing. I mean, I REALLY hate it. But there I am, every year around Christmas, fighting the traffic and all those headaches and bullshit, because one can't be a total jerk and not buy gifts for people, right? And then here I am this year, doing the same thing (picking up tools and some things for myself mainly as I see 90% clearances on some actual quality tools, etc.) this year, and there's so little traffic that it is literally as if it isn't even Christmas time.

So, I start talking to some of the cashiers at various stores, and while I'm talking to this cashier at Home Depot, this manager who I happen to know because one of his older relatives was a client of mine (before passing away two years ago - super nice person) comes up and wishes me 'Happy Holidays' (he could have said 'Christmas', this 'Holidays' thing is and has been waaaay too PC), and we start to talk. Well, it turns out that he pulls me to side (there's no one in line behind me), sort of away from the cashier and starts talking out the side of his mouth, you know, like he was trying to keep the cashier from hearing, and he tells me this economy sucks, this is the worse traffic they've ever had since he's been with HD, they're getting all kinds of weird signals from management, yada yada.

It wasn't just Home Depot, either. It was everywhere I went, including other Big Box stores and the lifestyle malls - everywhere.

Anyways. I do believe Brick & Mortar is going to suck wind when the revisionary sales, post-cnBSc shaftwork & babblecock by Michelle Big-Caboosa Cabrera announced in a part masculine-trying to be lusty voice, come in.

But maybe if retailers and etailers sell enough loss-leading merchandise, by taking the volume approach (and really, if no one is buying at higher prices due to Bernankeconomics - whereby people cut spending out of necessity unless they can buy things at incredibly low price points, because they're getting reamed so badly by inflation in non-discretionary areas and a shitty economy and wage growth/shrinkage/non-existence - what choice do the retailers and etailers have?) they can do well this season /snark/.

NON-ANECDOTAL COMMENT:

I would not doubt for a second that we've been living in a time period, during the last 3 1/2 years, whereby we are witnessing the biggest gap between what the government agencies that report economic data and the non-Federal Reserveless non-Bank have told us & what the reality has been IN MOST OF OUR LIFETIMES.

Think about the housing sales data revisions; just that...by itself. Let's not even delve into retail sales, bank data, etc.

If the NAR has this big of a revision, then who knows whether it's even close to being accurate, and if it's not accurate, it's probably still fluffed to the high side.

But even if it is in the general vicinity of being accurate, what does this revision mean in terms of economic activity as measured by $$$ that were reported to have taken place for x number of years, but in reality was all an illiusion - a mirage - a genuine Matrix Data Set?

Who traded off this massive falsehood? What repercussions were there and what repercussions are still to come from this massive, in terms of economic/monetary revision, and what further discrepancies on housing sales data or other data pertaining to other categories are there and will there be, whether reported or not?

It's all a sick, twisted, f*cking joke at this point.

This one single revision of housing data represents hundreds of billions of dollars (closing in on the big trillion USD mark) of fake GDP, that was reported in many ways and through many conduits, leading to reliance, actions, etc., but it was all a lie.

Since there are no apparent consequences these days to collossal screw ups...let me just add a zero to my net worth..,oops! I'll leave that for 4 years and deal with it then...oh now I've just forgotten what I was talking about. I don't know what you're referencing...what does what mean? I take the fifth..what?? An entire billion is missing? I'm not sure what that is...

reply to TRUTH in SUNSHINE: many are too broke to shop & the rest are sic to death of the entire scam. many (like me & a few of my friends & family) are DELIBERATELY withholding our money from the scam economy. many (like me & a few of my friends & family) are DELIBERATELY hoarding cash, silver & gold & food & NOT handing money to big box stores. the tide has turned; any money i spend is local & on necessities only ......... it's over, it's so damn over.

The big pre Xmas sales started in October to pull forward sales in the chase for expected limited dollars. I guess it is only natural that the post Xmas sales are pulled forward to before Xmas to bump year end. Margin is going to get crushed.

If the truth be known, the data manipulation goes all the way back to the 70's where is was more subtle and easier to get away with. I first started noticiing this as an analyst back then. it gathered steram in the 80's and has gone viral since. Check out John Williams's ShadowStats web site as he is more on top of this than any of the street shills. Perception is reality for the markets until reality becomes so real that the market cannot deny. We are at that point now and staring at the cliff we are about to fall over. Our entire society has become one big lie, and we are about to see what life is like in a dictatorship/police state. Think Russian or French revolution...

National Association of Realtors are nothing but liars. You hear their ads all the time 'NOW is the best time to buy a house EVER' and all that....they dont care that prices are likely to fall another 25%, they need to generate commissions for their association members, meaning NAR is the LAST people to take any advice from.

It is the way of the land to cover over bullshit, with more bullshit until you bury yourself in it. If you are successful in this venture you are now top pick for government work and running for office. Bullshit experience is a pre rec for thieves positions.

I wonder how many samples they need to get a better than real read on consumer sentiment.

Hahahaa, exactly my thought also. Now we can wait all those "Better than expected!" spins from the banks going forward. And just in case, the winter is coming and with it comes the dear excuse for everything and anything: "weather related".

I don't know about 'comps' per se, but definitely thinking the best way to get the numbers to say what you want is to change the formula. Particularly if that lowers last years numbers which it has. Bar has been effectively lowered. Move along now, nothing to see here.

I can guarantee you that NAR did not make formula revisions that would work against them in the future. That is not happening.

I don't know specifically how this revision will affect future numbers. But to me it appears they are trying to game the system by now lowering past number and thus make it easier to raise future year on year moving averages.

Kroft: ...there's not been any prosecutions, criminal prosecutions, of people on Wall Street. And that the civil charges that have been brought have often resulted in what many people think have been a slap on the wrist, fines. Are you disappointed by that?

Obama: ...I can tell you, just from 40,000 feet, that some of the most damaging behavior on Wall Street, in some cases, some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street, wasn't illegal.

Fellows, let's be reasonable, huh? This is not the time or the place to perform some kind of a half-assed autopsy on a fish... And I'm not going to stand here and see that thing cut open and see that little Kintner boy spill out all over the dock.

C (consumption) is normally the largest GDP component in the economy, consisting of private (household final consumption expenditure) in the economy. These personal expenditures fall under one of the following categories: durable goods, non-durable goods, and services. Examples include food, rent, jewelry, gasoline, and medical expenses but does not include the purchase of new housing.

I (investment) includes business investment in equipments for example and does not include exchanges of existing assets. Examples include construction of a new mine, purchase of software, or purchase of machinery and equipment for a factory. Spending by households (not government) on new houses is also included in Investment. In contrast to its colloquial meaning, 'Investment' in GDP does not mean purchases of financial products. Buying financial products is classed as 'saving', as opposed to investment. This avoids double-counting: if one buys shares in a company, and the company uses the money received to buy plant, equipment, etc., the amount will be counted toward GDP when the company spends the money on those things; to also count it when one gives it to the company would be to count two times an amount that only corresponds to one group of products. Buying bonds or stocks is a swapping of deeds, a transfer of claims on future production, not directly an expenditure on products.

FCE can then be further broken down by three sectors (households, governments and non-profit institutions serving households) and GCF by five sectors (non-financial corporations, financial corporations, households, governments and non-profit institutions serving households). The advantage of this second definition is that expenditure is systematically broken down, firstly, by type of final use (final consumption or capital formation) and, secondly, by sectors making the expenditure, whereas the first definition partly follows a mixed delimitation concept by type of final use and sector.

Note that C, G, and I are expenditures on final goods and services; expenditures on intermediate goods and services do not count. (Intermediate goods and services are those used by businesses to produce other goods and services within the accounting year.[7] )

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is responsible for calculating the national accounts in the United States, "In general, the source data for the expenditures components are considered more reliable than those for the income components [see income method, below]."[8]

Unfortunately this has been the game for decades. Just out of morbid curiosity, I recently looked up the annual US GDP since 1980 and factored out deficit spending and inflation. As you might guess, the result was a complete and total train wreck. We had a couple years that showed small growth in the late 90's without the life support systems, beyond that it was a wall to wall disaster. Someday I plan to track back and try to see when things went completely off the rails as a matter of policy, but its been a few months since I did that and the nausea hasnt subsided yet.

The problem with this country is that these people never get punished. All these people have to say is it was a mistake, no criminal intention there was.

That was with Hank Paulson and every other jerks there are out there making millions by lying to the public. They lied to the public and they get away with it all the times. It wasn't like this in 70s. People has some honors, then. I am getting really sick seeing these stuffs everyday.

I voted pump and here's why. The market will quickly realize that this downward revision leads to more favorable numbers going forward, as the headlines will read "Housing Sales Increase, Top Estimates." The reality behind the numbers is meaningless, only the perception of what will be perceived counts. The fact that I have come to think this way proves to me that I need to withdraw from this crazed system and learn to farm or maybe get a job down at the carwash.

I think this is strong evidence of a RICO crime on the part of NAR executives as a conspiratorial attempt to manipulate the equities market in favor of their 'clients'. But of course the worst AG since John Mitchell ( and that's really saying something considering the sorry lot of them since) will do absolutely nothing about it.

On a serious note, in the last month Fed admitted that they are awful economic forecasters and NAR admitted they completely make up numbers. Yet Yanks continue to create macro economic policy responses to horrible date.

Alas, capital markets and the sheeple that worship them, never look behind the curtain, until the curtain is blown to hell.

So, we were all lied to... and no one is going to go to jail for this?Sounds like a pretty rigged system to me! Someone is making their Christmas bonus right now off some insider info about this, and the plunge on Wall Street that will follow... you can bet your bottom dollar on that... and the fact that not one single criminal will go to jail over it.

The residential investment component in housing in Q1 GDP 2010 was $355.5 Billion. A back of the envelope adjustment of -15% to that number is roughly $302.2 Billion. The net effect on GDP would be a subtraction of about $53.3 Billion from Q1 GDP 2010. It deflates the GDP number for that quarter by roughly .3% from +2.7% GDP to +2.4%. Each GDP quarter which falls into the NAR's revisions would have a similar effect.

as bad as this sounds you can see that the mkt and its robots are gonna go higher today what a fucking joke..although there were complaints that mkt were manipulated by floor traders at least the mkt would correct now the algos have completely made this a ponzi scheme of epic proportions

so when do we find out that the BLS has fudging unemployment on the low side for the last 4 years? you know, that it really was and still is the 12 or 15 or 20% Obama said it "could have been" had we not handed over x amount of trillions of dollars to banksters worldwide...

Dukin' doughnuts has it wrong...America runs on lies, propaganda and "statistics"